Can folk aesthetics ground aesthetic realism? more

Can Folk Aesthetics ground Aesthetic Realism? Florian Cova, Nicolas Pain* Florian Cova Département d’Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure; Institut Jean Nicod, Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique Nicolas Pain Département d’Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure; Institut Jean Nicod, Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique * Both authors contributed equally. This research was supported in part by a Grant from the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) (ANR Blanche: SoCoDev) We thank Roberto Casati, Julien Dutant, Clément Layet, Sébastien Réhault, Philippe Vellozzo and two anonymous reviewers for useful comments on a previous version of this paper. Correspondence: Florian Cova, Institut Jean Nicod, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 29 rue d’Ulm, 75005, Paris, FRANCE Email: florian.cova@gmail.com 1 Summary: In this paper, we discuss an argument that aims to support Aesthetic Realism by claiming, first, that common sense is realist about aesthetic judgments, because it considers that aesthetic judgments can be right or wrong, and second, that because Aesthetic Realism comes from and accounts for “folk aesthetics”, it is the best aesthetic theory available. We empirically evaluate this argument by probing whether ordinary people with no training whatsoever in the subtle debates of aesthetic philosophy consider their aesthetic judgments as right or wrong. Having shown that the results do not support the main premise of the argument, we discuss the consequences for Aesthetic Realism and address possible objections to our study. 2 Can Folk Aesthetics ground Aesthetic Realism? 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 The “common sense argument”: a ground for Aesthetic Realism? Several arguments are used to support Aesthetic Realism. Among these, one consists in appealing to “folk aesthetics”, that is to common sense beliefs about aesthetic judgments, and more precisely to the “fact” that laypersons are “natural normativists”1. Traditionally (at least since Kant), philosophers consider that aesthetic judgments possess at least the following features: aestheticism (i.e. aesthetic judgments ascribe aesthetic values to things, person and events), and normativity (i.e. aesthetic judgments “claim” for universal validity, in the sense that when one formulates an aesthetic judgment, she considers her judgment as being either or incorrect so that, in a contradictory aesthetic debate, each side believes that at most one of them is right). Philosophical theories according to which aesthetic judgements actually possess such correctness (or incorrectness) are normativist theories. Others, which hold that aesthetic judgments do not possess this feature, we call skeptic theories2. The claim according to (Réhaut 2009) : “ [Aesthetic Realism]’s views belong to folk metaphysics: there is no attempt to set a new 1 ontological partition, purportedly clearer, more accurate, or more convenient, for our way to conceptualize reality; rather, it is an attempt to explain the implicit ontology in our ordinary aesthetic ascriptions and our most common aesthetic pratice.” (We translate.) See also Pouivet (2006). 2 There are two types of Aesthetic Skepticism: (i) Aesthetic Expressivism: aesthetic judgments are neither correct (or incorrect), nor do they possess any truth-value, they express the state of pleasure or displeasure felt by the one who utters it. In that sense, they are equivalent to expressions such as: “Yuck” or “Great!” Typical 3 which aesthetic judgments possess “normativity” is thus equivalent to the claim that laypeople are normativist. As such, Aesthetic Realism is a normativist theory. Reference to normativity and folk normativism in aesthetic judgements appears in an argument with two steps for Aesthetic Realism, which is summed up in (Zangwill 2001): Both realism and non-realism are on a par as far as the experiential aspect of aesthetics is concerned. But when it comes to explaining the normativity of aesthetic judgements, the realist is ahead […] I conclude that folk aesthetics is thus realist. Whether or not the tacit folk metaphysical commitment to aesthetic facts or states of affair is justified is another matter, but our aesthetic judgments presuppose that metaphysics. What is not an option is holding some non-realist view, be it Humean, Kantian or dispositional, while we can unproblematically retain our ordinary practice of making aesthetic judgments. The first step states that laypeople are normativist when it comes to aesthetic judgments (or, to put it in different words, that normativity is indeed a property of lay aesthetic judgments). Accordance with folk’s aesthetics is capital for Aesthetic Realism. Indeed, it is important for Aesthetic Realism not to conflict with ordinary judgments for the two following reasons. First, by doing so, it compels the concurrent theories (those which agree with Aesthetic Skepticism) to endorse the argumentative burden of proving that and représentants of this theory would be (Carnap 1931) and (Ayer 1936). (ii) Aesthetic Relativism: any aesthetic judgment possesses a proper truth-value, but none possesses the property of correctness, in the sense that there is no reason why others should accept it, because the truth-value is subject-relative. Indeed, its truth-value depends on who makes the judgment: if a person A states that the Arc de Triomphe is beautiful, and a person B states that it is not, then, for the relativist, it is possible for both statements to be true without any contradiction. Indeed, according to the relativist, the person A’s statement has the same truth-value as: “The Arc de Triomphe is beautiful according to some standards that apply to A”, while person B’s statement has the same truth-value as: “The Arc de Triomphe is ugly according to some standards that apply to B”. In other words, Aesthetic Relativism preserves the truth-value of aesthetic judgments, but denies them universal validity, and rejects any hierarchy between aesthetic judgments. Note that Aesthetic Skepticism does not have to (and does not usually) deny normativity to aesthetic judgments: it just claims that this normativity is not explicated by aesthetic judgments actually being correct or incorrect. 4 explaining why laypeople are wrong. Second, it allows Realism to compensate for its metaphysical disadvantage. Indeed, Aesthetic Realism is more metaphysically demanding than Aesthetic Skepticism, because the former appeals to aesthetic entities3, whereas the latter does not. Thus, if it were shown that Aesthetic Realism conflicts with common sense, then motivations for holding such a theory would be very thin, because, in this case, Aesthetic Realism would be at the same time more metaphysically demanding and in need for an error theory. The purpose of the second step is to show that Aesthetic realism is the best theory available. If we suppose that people consider that their aesthetic judgments can be correct or incorrect, in the sense that, if facing the same objects and having contradictory judgments, they will think that only one of these contradictory judgments can be correct and should be shared by others, then we should accept the idea that, according to these people, there is a criterion of correctness that cannot be found in subjects themselves, that there is an interpersonal criterion. A plausible hypothesis is that people locate this criterion in things themselves: what makes an aesthetic judgment true of false is the presence (or absence) of a certain aesthetic property in the things that we judge. Thus, if we accept that common sense is normativist, we have strong reasons to accept the claim that common sense is also realist. As Caroll (1999: 197) says: The supposition that aesthetic properties are objective also explains better how we talk about them than does the projection theory. For example, people involved in disputes about aesthetic properties act as though they think that they are disagreeing about the real properties of objects. They behave as though they think that there is a fact of the matter to be determined. They speak as if one side of disagreement is right and the other wrong. So, they, at least, must believe that aesthetic properties are objective. That is the way of understanding their behaviour that renders it most intelligible. On the other hand, if disputants are simply trading projections, we would have to say that their behaviour is utltimately irrational.And it is far from clear that the skeptics's arguments are compelling enough to warrant such wholesale suspicion of irrationality. 3 Abstract objects in Platonistic Aesthetic Realism or supervenient properties in Modal Aesthetic Realism. 5 Otherwise said; since the best theory must account for common sense, and Aesthetic Realism is the best explanation for common sense’s attitudes towards aesthetic judgments, then Aesthetic Realism is the best theory available. 1.2 Folk aesthetics and normativism: an empirical question To evaluate this argument, several strategies are available, yet one seemed to us more straightforward than the others. This strategy consists in casting doubt upon the “peopleare-normativist” premise, i.e. the first premise of the first step, which states that laypersons are normativist when it comes to aesthetic judgments. Indeed, if this first premise is wrong, then the whole argument collapses. Since this premise is empirical (about what people actually think), it can be evaluated through controlled experiments. We thus decided to put this premise to test. The purpose of this test was (i) to obtain experimentally controlled data about the rate to which normativity is a property of aesthetic judgements; (ii) to see if normativism is widely endorsed; (iii) to test a normativist theory which tries to account for our aesthetic judgments and behaviours: Aesthetic Realism4. In any case, the results cannot invalidate or confirm this theory in a straightforward way. But if they show that (i) that aesthetic jugements possess a high rate of normativity and that (ii) normativism is widely endorsed, then we would be justified in saying that realists’ claims about common sense’s 4 There are many types of Aesthetic Realism. Each of them has unique metaphysical (platonism or supervenience), epistemological (internalism or externalism) and semantic (correspondence theory or coherence theory) features. Yet they are only different ways to account for the purported normativity of our aesthetic jugements and the normativism that is supposed to transpire in our behaviours. 6 normativism is corroborated by our results; and if they do not, then we would be able to state that our results challenge the aesthetic realists’ claim about common sense’s normativism Indeed, if the results of our study show univocally that folk aesthetics, in the conditions of our test, is not normativist, then we will be allowed to set the following counterargument against Aesthetic Realism’s “common sense’s argument”: 1. If common sense is realist, then it is normativist. 2. If (and only if) common sense is realist, then it can provide a ground to Aesthetic Realism. 3. Data showed that common sense is not normativist. 4. Then common sense is not realist. 5. Therefore common sense cannot provide a ground to Aesthetic Realism. Therefore, the burden to prove (i) that layperson are wrong and explaining why it is the case, and (ii) that our results are not reliable would be on the Realists’ shoulders, not on Skeptics’. 2. TESTING THE COMMON SENSE ARGUMENT, EXPERIMENT 1: THE BEAUTIFUL. 2.1 Methods Our goal is to establish whether aesthetic judgments made by common sense possess normativity. First, we need an operational definition of normativity and normativism. One 7 is normativist and utters aesthetic judgments that have the property of normativity if and only if she satisfies the following conditions: 1. She is objectivist towards aesthetic judgments: any aesthetic judgment is correct or non-correct. 2. She is non-relativist towards aesthetic judgments: the criterion of correction does not change according to who forms the judgment, i.e., an aesthetic judgment cannot be correct for her and non-correct for another one. She also considers that any aesthetic judgment is correct for anybody or non-correct for anybody. How to empirically specify if someone is normativist towards aesthetic judgment? A good start would be to focus on one aesthetic value only, because it is possible that common sense is normativist towards aesthetic judgments bearing on a certain aesthetic value, while not being normativist towards judgments bearing on other aesthetic values. Here, we will focus on the beautiful, the predicate to be beautiful (in French : “être beau”5), which is a paradigmatic aesthetic value. Second, we need a method capable of showing if a tested individual satisfies the two described conditions. We used a method from experimental philosophy, which has already been applied to moral judgments6 and judgments about colours7. This method consists in a short vignette describing a disagreement between two individuals making two incompatible and contradictory judgments bearing on the relevant predicate. Subjects are asked whether one of the individuals is correct and the other non-correct, or if they are both correct, or both wrong, or if it makes no sense to speak in terms of being correct and being non-correct in this 5 All experiments presented in this paper were originally run in French (on French subjects). We present here translations of the original material. 6 (Nichols 2004) and (Cova & Ravat 2008). (Cohen & Nichols, forthcoming). 7 8 situation. The answer enables us to see whether the subject is normativist or not. Let us take an example. Consider the following vignette: Agathe and Ulrich are on holidays in the country. While having a walk in the fields, they hear a nightingale singing. Agathe says: “What beautiful singing!” But Ulrich answers: “No. It’s definitely not beautiful.” After reading the vignette, subjects are asked: According to you: 1. One of them is right and the other is not. 2. Both are right. 3. Both are wrong. 4. Neither is right or wrong. It makes no sense to speak in terms of correctness in this situation. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion. The consequences of the choice made by the subject are the following: 9 Figure 1: folk aesthetics' theories and possible choices If the subject is expressivist towards the predicate to be beautiful, then she will chose answer 4, because it is the one where it is stated that aesthetic judgments has no truthvalue: none of them, between Agathe and Ulrich, is right and none of them is wrong, because these predicates do not apply here. If the subject is not expressivist, she is either a relativist or a normativist. If she is relativist, then it follows that she will hold that aesthetic judgment’s truth-value will depend on the individual who makes it. Answers 2 and 3 are among her possible choices. If the subject is neither expressivist nor relativist (i.e. is normativist), she will choose the first answer. Nonetheless a caveat is here necessary. We cannot infer that every subject that will choose answer 1 is necessarily normativist for the following reason: a relativist can choose this answer because she can think that Agathe says something that is right for Agathe AND Ulrich something that is wrong for Ulrich. Yet, with this methodology, we possess a reliable estimation, in a given population, of the maximum percentage of aesthetic normativists. 2.2 Material and procedure We used this method to test whether common sense is normativist towards aesthetic value and judgments. Following the described scenario, we designed: 1. 3 scenarios employing the predicate to be beautiful about works of art (about the Joconda of da Vinci, the Bagatelle No. 25 in A Minor (WoO 59 and Bia 515) or For Elise by Beethoven, and the castle of the Loire); 2. 3 scenarios employing the predicate to be beautiful about natural objects (about the 10 singing of the nightingale, the snow crystal, and Niagara Falls); 3. 3 scenarios employing the predicate to be beautiful about human beings and illustrated with photographs (about a man, a woman, and a baby). Indeed, there exist positions in the aesthetical field that hold that realism is only relevant to certain categories of objects, and not to others. For example, some are realist towards works of art, but not towards natural objects (Parsons 2008). This is the reason why it was necessary to use three different conditions in this experiment: works of art, natural objects and human beings. Yet it was not enough. We needed control conditions to which we would compare these three conditions. For that purpose we introduced six other scenarios: 1. 3 scenarios employing factual predicates, about which we expected subjects to be normativist: Is Proust the author of In search of Lost Time? Are Dürer’s engravings full of colors? Does Clemenceau’s portrait by Manet represent Clemenceau? 2. 3 scenarios employing paradigmatic subjective predicates, about which we expected the subjects to be subjectivist: Is pasta with ketchup good? Are brussels sprouts good? Is silk pleasant to touch? Altogether we designed fifteen scenarios. Each participant had to answer to each scenario in a random order. Before filling the questionnaire, the participants received the following instruction: You are about to read short stories. Each story focuses on two characters, Agathe and Ulrich, who are friends from different cultures and who are used to travelling together. After reading a story, you will be asked to answer to a question. After having answered the question, please go to the following story, until the end. It is clearly stated in the instructions that Agathe and Ulrich are from different cultures in order to neutralize any relativism. Indeed, it possible that some subjects would adopt relativism towards aesthetic judgments, not at the scale of the individual, but at a cultural 11 level, thus believing that whether an aesthetic judgment is correct or incorrect depends on the culture of the one who expresses it, which could result in them giving seemingly nonrelativist answers while they are genuine relativists (because they consider the two protagonists of the disagreement as belonging to the same cultural group). For example, while investigating folk moral relativism, Sarkissian and his colleagues (forthcoming) found that the number of relativist answers raised when the cultural distance between the two protagonists of a moral disagreement increased. This shows that certain subjects that gave non-relativist answers in scenarios with small cultural distance were in fact “hidden” relativists. Thus, in indicating that Agathe and Ulrich are from different cultures, we diminished the risk to have the first answer picked up by subjects who are not genuine normativists, but cultural relativists. Nevertheless, the fact that Agathe and Ulrich are depicted as friends leaves open the possibility that the cultural distance is not wide enough and that “hidden” relativists still might stay undetected. We’ll come back on this problem in the discussion of results. 2.3 Participants Thirty subjects answered to our questionnaire. All were recruited by the Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistiques in Paris8. Among the subjects, there were twenty-one women. Age mean was 22. 2.4 Results 8 We thank the Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistiques for its cooperation. 12 We coded the answers as follow: for each normativist answer (answer 1), a participant received one point. For every other answer, the participants received 0 points. Thus, with three scenarios in each condition (factual, subjective, natural objects, human beings and works of art), each participant received a “normativism score” on a scale ranging from 0 to 3 for each condition. For each condition, the subjects’ average score indicates the population’s level of normativism. Results are described in Figure 2. Figure 2: the beautiful It can be observed that the average “normativism score” for each aesthetic condition (works of art, natural objects and human beings) are closer to the average score observed in the subjective condition than to the one we obtained in the factual condition, and clearly below the middle of the scale (1.5). This first impression is confirmed by statistical tests. An ANOVA with condition as a factor and normativism scores as a dependent variable 13 reveals a significant effect of condition (F(4)=66,65 ; p<0,001). Moreover, a post-hoc Tukey-test reveals that the only significant differences are to be found in all comparisons involving the factual condition. Said otherwise, participants are less normativist about aesthetic judgments than in the factual condition, and they are not more normativist about aesthetic judgments than about the judgments of taste we used in the subjective condition. Even if we were not able to detect all relativists and if some of them were still confounded with normativists, these results are sufficient to suggest that a wide majority of subjects were not normativists. 2.5 Interpretation About aesthetic judgments involving beautiful as a predicate, it seems clear that most of our subjects were not normativists, whether the aesthetic judgments were made about natural objects, works of art, or human beings. Common sense seems to deal with aesthetic judgments as it does with judgments of taste. Thus it seems that the common sense’s argument used by aesthetic realism is grounded on an unsound premise. Yet, with only one predicate, we cannot state that common sense is not normativist and that the argument is not grounded, because that would be a hasty generalization. This is the reason why we did a similar experiment with another (thin) aesthetic predicate: to be ugly9. 9 Another reason to study this predicate is that some have suggested that judgments of normativity could vary between the predicates “beautiful” and “ugly”. Thus, Jaffro (2008) writes: “Within the aesthetic field, in certain contexts, realism about ugliness is often weaker than realism about beauty at least when persons are concerned, as if the intensity of the claim to objectivity in aesthetic judgments about people could be affected by politeness or the demands of respect for other people.” 14 3. TESTING THE COMMON SENSE ARGUMENT. EXPERIMENT 2: THE UGLY. The first experiment focused on a “positive” predicate: to be beautiful. In the following experiment, we focused on a “negative” predicate. Our aim was to see whether we could replicate and extend results of Experiment 1 with a negative predicate (to be ugly, in French: “être laid”). Indeed, it is possible that aesthetic judgments with negative predicate may be dealt with a more normativist attitude. 3.1 Material and method As in the first experiment, each participant had to read 15 scenarios: 1. 3 scenarios employing factual predicates (Is Balzac the author of the Comédie humaine? Are any Van Gogh’s paintings with red color? Does Clemenceau’s portrait by Manet represent Clemenceau?) 2. 3 scenarios employing subjective predicates (Are pasta with ketchup disgusting? Are brussels sprouts disgusting? Is a roughened cloth unpleasant to feel?) 3. 3 scenarios employing to be ugly about works of art (the Fontaine of Duchamp, Death Metal’s music, the Arche de la Défense in Paris) 4. 3 scenarios employing to be ugly about natural objects (the volcanic landscape of Lanzarote’s island, the scream of the turkey, and a spider) 5. 3 scenarios employing to be ugly about human beings (a man, a woman, and a baby). 15 3.2 Participants Thirthy individuals answered our questionnaire. Each of them had been recruited by the Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistiques, of Paris. There were twentythree women. Age mean was 23.3. 3.3. Results The results were coded as in our first experiment and each participant received a “normativism score” situated between zero and three for each condition. The results are detailed in Figure 3. Figure 2: the ugly As in our first experiment, scores for the three conditions employing aesthetic 16 judgments do not differ significantly from scores in the subjective condition. An ANOVA, with the condition as a factor, and the normativism score as a dependent variable reveals a statistically significant effet of condition (F(4)=54,75 ; p<.0,00). A post hoc Tukey-test reveals that significant differences can only be found in all comparisons with the factual condition10. 3.4 Interpretation Once more, our results suggest that common sense is very far from being normativist towards aesthetic judgments. These results strengthen those obtained in Experiment 1, allowing us to advance the following counter-argument to the common sense argument: 1. If common sense is realist, then it is normativist. 2. If (and only if) common sense is realist, then it can provide a ground to Aesthetic Realism. 3. Data showed that common sense is not normativist. 4. Then common sense is not realist. 5. Therefore common sense cannot provide a ground to Aesthetic Realism. Concerning the empirical premise of common sense argument for Aesthetic Realism, the consequence is quite clear: it is a false premise. Of course, our study does not refute Aesthetic Realism altogether. Rather, it shows that ordinary judgments are not what we think they are and that it is not possible to build an argument for Aesthetic Realism taking folk’s aesthetics as a premise. Indeed, even if other studies show that most subjects make aesthetic judgments with a high rate of normativism, our study will still suggest that a fair 10 Contrary to Jaffro’s predictions, normativism score were higher than in Experiment 1, in particular for the “human beings” condition. Nevertheless, this difference was not significant. 17 share of subjects make no such aesthetic judgments. There is no tendency strong enough in this matter to support an universal premise. 4. OBJECTIONS AND ANSWERS. In this section, we will expose some possible objections to our study. There are two main kinds of possible objections: first, methodological objections to our experiment and second, objections about our deriving the conclusion “common sense is not realist” from our results. 4.1 Methodological objections 4.1.1 We asked subjects to make judgments about judgments. Some can argue that we asked participants to make judgments about aesthetic judgments asserted by other (fictive) persons and thus that participants may not have felt seriously concerned by those judgments. Maybe, if their own aesthetic beliefs were at stake, the participants would not have produced non-realist answers. To answer this objection we collected other data by running a third experiment on twenty new participants. First we asked the subject to think about a work of art that they would judge as beautiful. Second, we asked them to imagine that they meet someone who disagrees with them, i.e., someone who thinks that this work of art is not beautiful. Third, 18 we asked them the same kind of questions as in Experiments 1 and 2: Is one of you right and the other wrong? Are you both right? Or both wrong ? Are none of you right or wrong, because talking about correctness in this situation makes no sense? The results were straightforward: only two participants (10%) picked up the normativist answer. The other eighteen (90%) picked up one of the other answers. Thus it seems that, even when we ask people about their own judgment, normativism is not a widespread belief. 4.1.2 We did not use comparative judgments. One can argue that the type of aesthetic judgments we used is not relevant or significant. In our scenarios, Agathe and Ulrich make judgments about only one object. However in life, we do not always make aesthetic judgments this way. We can compare things, e.g., judge that an object is more beautiful than another. Studying such judgments could be the true way of probing common sense’s normativism. Indeed, Hume used comparative judgments to show the absurdity of the thesis according to which all aesthetic judgment have the same value: Whoever would assert an equality of genius and elegance between Ogilby and Milton, or Bunyan and Addison, would be thought to defend no less an extravagance, than if he had maintained a mole-hill to be as high as Teneriffe, or a pond as extensive as the ocean. Though there may be found persons, who give the preference to the former authors; no one pays attention to such a taste; and we pronounce, without scruple, the sentiment of these pretended critics to be absurd and ridiculous. The principle of the natural equality of tastes is then totally forgot, and while we admit it on some occasions, where the objects seem near an equality, it appears an extravagant paradox, or rather a palpable absurdity, where objects so disproportioned are compared together.11 Is common sense’s normativism revealed in a comparative situation? In an experiment 11 (Hume 1757/2001) 19 about moral judgments run by Goodwin and Darley12, and in which aesthetic judgments were used as controls for comparison, participants were given aesthetic comparisons, such as “Shakespeare was a better writer than is Dan Brown”, “Miles Davis was a better musician than is Britney Spears”. In each case, participants had to say if these judgments were either (i) true, or (ii) false, or (iii) just “an opinion or an attitude”. The results did not reveal a high rate of normativism: 84% of the participants chose the third possibility in the comparison between Shakespeare and Dan Brown and 96% in the comparison between Miles Davis and Britnez Spears. Once more, the results do not show that common sense is unanimously normativist, even about comparative judgments. 4.1.3 Our population is not representative. Eventually, some could argue that the results of our experiments are not representative, because the participants are biased (indeed, most of them were Parisian students). Thus, we cannot infer that our results are valid for other populations, whether there exists or not a population for which any results are valid for other populations. But why would we make such an inference? We agree with the idea that, in another population, the results could have been different. Our purpose was not to show that common sense universally rejects normativism but to evaluate the widely held view according to which common sense is realist, because it is unanimously normativist. Our experiments showed that normativism is not widely shared, because for the population we tested, aesthetic judgments do not possess a high rate of normativism. The remaining strategy would be to show that the population we tested is exceptionally or pathologically 12 (Goodwin & Darley 2008). 20 deviated from ordinary people. But French people are not that weird13. On a more serious note, it would indeed be necessary (and interesting) to reproduce these results in different populations. Nevertheless, as the available data all speak in favour of folks not being aesthetic normativists, we think that the burden of the proof is now on the shoulders of those who claim that people are intuitively aesthetic realists. 4.2. Reflexive answers and common sense Another line of objection could be that our experiments are methodologically sound, but that they only capture people’s reflexive and explicit beliefs, not what common sense really thinks, at a deep, inconscious level, and that is only perceivable through subtle and indirect cues. Said otherwise, people could utter aesthetic judgments endowed with normativity without being explicitly normativist. 4.2.1 Our behaviours show that we ascribe aesthetic value with a normativist attitude 13 Indeed, one could think that there are reasons to think that French Parisian students might be biased towards aesthetic relativism (for example, because they are more likely to be influenced by the relativist doctrines of French Theory). Nevertheless, we think there are also strong reasons to expect that they might be biased towards aesthetic normativism (though not aesthetic realism). Indeed, all French students that have entered the University have succeeded at a national examination called “baccalauréat” in which philosophy is a non-optional course. A look at French philosophy textbook for high-school students reveal that the fact that we consider our aesthetic judgments as universally valid and that there is a crucial difference between aesthetic judgments and judgments of taste is taken as granted by most philosophy teachers (even at the level of university). Thus, we are inclined to think that, due to this teaching, we expected French students to have a tendency to consider aesthetic judgments differently from judgments of taste. Clearly, it was not the case. 21 It is sometimes advanced against Aesthetic Skepticism that the Skeptic contradicts himself in his actions: it is evident that we find that some objects (or person) are beautiful while others are not, and it is also evident that such evaluations plays a causal role in our behaviour. For example: we choose this painting for our room rather than any other because we judge it to be the most beautiful. But, according to the Realist, if we weren’t realists about aesthetic values, we would not act this way. We would be indifferent to aesthetic values and they shouldn’t have a weight into our decisions. So, the Sceptic contradicts himself every time he acts upon an aesthetic evaluation. The problem with this argument is that it rests on a very doubtful premise: that acting upon a given kind of value amounts to being realist about this kind of value and acknowledge that it exists independently from our evaluations, i.e. that choosing painting A rather than painting B to decorate my room requires me not only (i) to attribute a greater aesthetic value to A compared to B, but also (ii) to believe that my evaluation is universally valid and that the aesthetic value I attribute to A is an objective property of this painting. But I don’t need that much: for me to choose A, I just need to have a greater interest in A that in B, that is to give a greater aesthetic value to A. Why should I care about this value being an objective and independent property of this object? And why should I care about this judgment having universal validity? As long as this painting pleases me, it is enough to choose it over any other. There’s nothing contradictory in saying: “I choose A rather than B, because I prefer A and find it more beautiful than B, though I don’t think that someone who would find B more beautiful than A would be wrong”, because there’s nothing irrational about acting on the basis of values and preferences we don’t consider universally valid. For example, I can choose to study philosophy rather than physics because I find the former more interesting, but it does not 22 require me to think that anyone who thinks that physics is more interesting than philosophy is dead wrong. So, acting upon aesthetic evaluations doesn’t require us to be realist about aesthetic values. 4.2.2 The linguistic form of our judgments shows that we are normativist According to some aesthetic realists, the grammatical form of our aesthetic judgments itself shows that we are implicitly normativists. When we make an aesthetic judgment, we utter a sentence that ascribes an aesthetic predicate to an object (“This painting is beautiful”), rather than utter sentences that only express the way this object makes us feel (”I love this painting”), sentences that are nevertheless linguistically available to us. This linguistic choice is supposed to show that, implicitly, we think that aesthetic judgments say something about an object and are thus susceptible to be true or false14. If someone is a normativist, then, she satisfies the two following conditions: (i) she thinks that her aesthetic judgments are either correct or incorrect and (ii) she thinks that the criterion of truth value is interpersonal, more likely, in the thing itself, rather than in the person who makes the judgment. This argument is not a deadly weapon against a relativist, because the latter can reply that any monadic grammatical utterance can conceal a dyadic predicate. If I say that “the drug store is on the left”, then it seems that the utterance is monadic (one predicate: to be on the left). Yet this predicate is actually a 14 This argument can be traced back to Reid (2011): "Even those who hold beauty to be merely a feeling in the person that perceives it, find themselves under a necessity of expressing themselves, as if beauty were solely a quality of the objetc, and not the percipient. No reason can be given why all mankind should express themselvs thus, but that they believe what they say. It is therefore contrary to the universal sens of mankind, expressed by their language, that beauty is not really in the object, but is merely a feeling in the person who is said to perceive it. Philosophers should be very cautious in opposing the common sense of mankind; for, when they do, they rarely miss going wrong 23 dyadic predicate. It can only makes sense when it establishes a relation between what is on the left (the drugstore) and what is the landmark (me). According to a relativist, uttering the sentence that we love a painting is stating that there is a dyadic relation between the one who enunciates the sentence and the propriety to be beautiful. What about the one who rejects both condition 1 and 2, the expressivist? The argument, against an expressivist, would mean that any aesthetic judgment is right or wrong, because the sentence links a predicate to a subject. A possible answer, for the expressivist, would be that grammatical forms can be misleading, because sentences with a “subjectpredicate” structure can be used, not to express a proposition, but to communicate some feelings. If one were to oppose that argument, she would be compelled to accept that we are also normativists towards “gastronomic” judgments of taste (“this ice cream is yummy”). Nevertheless, the normativist can use a similar argument, which is not grounded on the grammatical form, but on pragmatics: why do we prefer to use sentences like “this painting is beautiful”, while we have at our disposal expressions like “I am fond of this painting”? If we use this form, then it means that the first one cannot be reduced to the mere expression of a feeling. An aesthetic judgment is richer, semantically speaking, than the mere expression of a feeling. And the semantic wealth comes from the fact that this sentence expresses something about what an intrinsic propriety of the object of our judgment. But an expressivist can answer that the sentence “this painting is beautiful” can express two different things at the same time: the fact that we have a certain feeling and the particular kind of feeling that we have. Thus, the judgment “this painting is beautiful” is richer than “I like this painting” not because he attributes intrinsic properties to the painting but because it specifies the king of pleasant feeling that leads me to approve this 24 painting, something that “I like this painting” cannot do. 4.2.3 Aesthetic discussions presuppose Aesthetic Realism Another argument starts with the following anthropological fact: we try sometimes to modify the views of others about what is beautiful and what is ugly, and we put forward our views. According to the normativist’s view, this fact would not make any sense if we did not think (i) that aesthetic judgments have a truth-value, and (ii) that this truth-value can be the same for different persons. Yet it is possible to make sense of these discussions even if aesthetic judgments are mere expressions of subjective opinions. Let’s start with an example: a pun. Consider a set of friends. Some of them do not think that the pun p is funny. Consider that they do not think p is funny because they did not understand p. The ones who understood it and thought p was funny may change the mind of the others if they explain the meaning of p. Once the others understand p, they might think p is funny. In that case, a discussion may change the views of someone.. Yet, as we can see, no normativism is required. Only the belief that I may change the mind of another person, with the help of a certain piece of information, is required. The same can be said to aesthetic discussions. I can argue for a given aesthetic view about a given work of art without holding that normativism is true. The only feature that is required is the belief that I may be able to modify the view of others by sharing with others information about this work that they might not possess. It presupposes the idea that some aspects of a work of art may escape our analysis. Yet it seems a plausible idea, 25 because any appreciation of a work of art requires knowledge about the historical context. For example, a parody would require at least the knowledge of the object of the parody. Yet the normativist could answer that, even if it is possible to modify others’ aesthetic judgments without endorsing normativism, what would be the benefit? Why would we do that if we did not think that some judgments are correct and others are not? Why would we want to amend the judgments of others, or even discuss our views, if we think that we cannot find the criterion for an agreement? Several answers, all compatible, are possible. First, we may indirectly want to modify an aesthetic judgment because we want to correct a false belief, which plays a keyrole in the aesthetic judgment, concerning an objective feature of a given work of art (e.g., the intention of the author is not what the person thinks it is). Second, we may want to help someone to experiment more pleasure while looking at a given work of art. Studies show that the intensity of aesthetic pleasure vary in function of its being shared, i.e., the more we are to share an aesthetic pleasure, the higher the intensity of this pleasure will be. Eventually, the subjectivist and the relativist may consider that a judgment that relies on a partial and erroneous view is faulty, because the same author of the judgment, in perfect epistemic conditions, would have a different judgment. Yet, it does not mean that this judgment possess a truth-value. In the same way, anger can be said to be uncalled for, or irrelevant, if it is triggered by false belief, without ascribing a truth-value to an emotion like anger. CONCLUSION AND BROADER IMPLICATIONS The purpose of our experiments was to test whether common sense is normativist or 26 not, in order to see whether the “common sense argument” in favour of Aesthetic Realism hold. Our results were unambiguous: people do not claim universal validity for aesthetic judgments. Therefore Aesthetic Realism cannot anymore rely on this argument to ground its hypotheses. But these results also have important metaphilosophical consequences for Aesthetics. Indeed, one of the main object of Aesthetics is the study of the nature of aesthetic judgments, and philosophical inquiries about them seem to have taken as their starting point our “target” premise according to which people consider their aesthetic judgments as universally valid. In this perspective, the main goal of Aesthetics would be to explain how judgments that, at the same time, are based on subjective feelings but claim for universal validity -a combination of traits that would be specific of aesthetic judgments- are possible. For example, Kant’s first half of his Critique of the Power of Judgment is a tentative to give a transcendental account of how such judgment are possible. Indeed, though he is not a realist, Kant’s starting point is the “fact” that we all are normativists and claim universal assent for our aesthetic judgments: … when [a man] puts a thing on a pedestal and calls it beautiful, he demands the same delight from others. He judges not merely for himself, but for all men, and then speaks of beauty as if it were a property of things. Thus he says that the thing is beautiful; and it is not as if he counts on other agreeing with him in his judgment of liking owing to his having found them in such agreement on a number of occasions, but he demands this agreement of them. He blames them if they judge differently, and denies them taste, which he still requires of them as something they ought to have; and to this extent it is not open to men to say: Every one has his own taste. (Kant 1790/1928, p.52) Most philosophers working in Aesthetics have followed Kant thinking (i) that it was an undisputable “fact” that people claimed universal assent for their aesthetic judgments (i.e. were normativists) and (ii) that the “true problem” of Aesthetics was to account for the possibility of such judgments. For example, Zangwill (2010) writes: 27 We can sum things up like this: judgments of taste occupy a mid-point between judgments of niceness and nastiness, and empirical judgments about the external world. Judgments of taste are like empirical judgments in that they have universal validity; but, they are unlike empirical judgment in that they are made on the basis of an inner response. Conversely, judgments of taste are like judgments of niceness or nastiness in that they are made on the basis of an inner subjective response or experience; but they are unlike judgments of niceness and nastiness, which makes no claim to universal validity. To cut the distinctions the other way: in respect of normativity, judgments of taste are like empirical judgments and unlike judgments of niceness or nastiness; but in respect of subjectivity, judgments of taste are unlike empirical judgments and like judgments of niceness or nastiness. So we have three-fold division: empirical judgments, judgments of taste, and judgments of niceness or nastiness. And judgments of taste have the two points of similarity and dissimilarity on each side just noted. As Kant recognized (more or less following Hume), all this is a point from which to theorize. The hard question is whether, and if so how, such a subjectively universal judgment is possible. On the face of it, the two characteristics are in tension with each other. Our puzzle is this: what must be the nature of pleasure in beauty if the judgments we base on it can make claim to correctness? This is the Big Question in aesthetics. Kant set the right agenda for aesthetics. His problem was the right one, even if his solution was not. But what if people do not claim universal assent for their aesthetic judgments? What if people consider aesthetic judgments like judgments of niceness and nastiness? Then we should be forced to conclude that what Zangwill calls the “Big Question” of Aesthetics is finally a false problem and that Aesthetics must account for other -more empiricallygrounded- phenomena. Thus questioning the premise according to which people are normativists amounts to suggest that there might be no real “problem of aesthetic judgments”15. As the results of our study show, if accounting for the purported normativity of aesthetic judgments was one of the main goal of Aesthetics, then a great deal of works in Aesthetics were dealing with a false problem. The normativity of common sense’s 15 One might argue that even if most people turn out not to be normativists, the Big Question would still need to be answered, because even a little number of universalized judgments would require explanation. But, if it were the case that only few aesthetic judgments were universalized, there would no longer be any difference between aesthetic judgments and other judgments of taste, and the explanation of universalized judgments would cease to be an aesthetic question. Indeed, data show that a minority of subjects also universalize their judgments for predicates like “disgusting” (see Cova & Ravat 2008 and Experiment 2 above). 28 aesthetic judgments does not need to be accounted for, because there is no such thing in laypersons’ aesthetic practice. What emerges from this study is the unsound use of folk aesthetics by aesthetic theories. On the one hand, Aesthetic Philosophy strives to elucidate common sense’s aesthetic judgments and behaviours. On the other, claims about common sense’s aesthetic judgments and behaviours are more often grounded on a few examples from our idiomatic expressions, or worst, on other theoretical analysis with no empirical ground, than based on methodologically controlled observations. Our study shows that a bottom-up approach, with controlled data about aesthetic judgments made by common sense, can be very useful and provide robust data. 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